InTrade should disclose what market-making automatism they are using to liquify the WSJ and FT play-money prediction markets.

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BetFair:

Betfair Robot on Exchange Games

Betfair Customer Services 13 Dec 16:51

From December 2007 Betfair has started employing its own software or “robots” to provide liquidity into the exchange games markets.
It has been evident for some time that the activity of 3rd Party bots is essential to ensure that there is enough liquidity in the markets to provide an attractive customer proposition. For commercial reasons we have decided that rather than rely solely on 3rd party bots, Betfair will itself provide liquidity.

Our robot has no advantages over any other in price terms. That is, if anyone (whether electronically or manually) offers a better price, the Betfair robot will not try to better that price- and we are not market-making on the back of being able to see what everyone else is doing. Customers will be equally likely to be matched by a 3rd party as by the Betfair bot.

Our robots cannot cheat, they place bets through the same channel as other robots, have no access to privileged information and cannot influence the result. The architecture of the system has been passed by our regulator and approved.

BetFair Games

Once again, we see that BetFair are ethical and disclose&#8230- whereas InTrade-TradeSports are not and do not.

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • I get a kick each morning out of spying on the rich, famous, and powerful people updating their LinkedIn profile and connections. (Go to “InBox”, and click on “Network Updates”.)
  • ??? BetFair bet-matching logic ???
  • Eliot Spitzer has simply demonstrated once again that those who rise to the top of organizations are very often the most demented, conflicted individuals in any group.
  • Business Risks & Prediction Markets
  • Brand-new BetFair bet-matching logic proves to be very controversial with some event derivative traders.
  • Jimmy Wales accused of editing Wikipedia for donations.
  • What the prediction market experts said on Predictify

10 thoughts on “InTrade should disclose what market-making automatism they are using to liquify the WSJ and FT play-money prediction markets.

  1. Michael Giberson said:

    Maybe I can see your point with real money markets – traders would want to know if there is some possibility that the exchange is taking advantage of its information to disadvantage the traders – so real money markets should disclose use of software agents trading on behalf of the exchange even if the trading is only to maintain liquidity.  But I’m not convinced it is a big deal in, say, the WSJ’s play money market.

  2. Chris F. Masse said:

    The automated market maker takes price info from the InTrade real-money prediction markets and bring this info to the WSJ and FT play-money prediction markets. So it’s not an intra-exchange AMM (the kind of AMM you are accustomed to). It’s a special case, and it raises the issue of how much do the play-money traders contribute in the formation of prices on these play-money markets.

  3. The Gravatars are back in the Midas Oracle comments. | Midas Oracle .ORG said:

    […] now we can appreciate Mike Giberson’s new face picture —his old one, published on his website (and now pulled down), made him look a Dracula sucking […]

  4. Rab Bibater said:

    The real issue, surely, is why they feel the need to provide liquidity?  Third parties provide liquidity to the exchange, that does not in itself necessiate a need for Betfair to do the same??

  5. Chris F. Masse said:

    Rab, the post was about the "BetFair Games"…. not BetFair… The BetFair Games are special… They are about gambling actioned by a betting exchange mechanism… It’s special… Too special, maybe, or their clients. Thus, the need for an AMM.

  6. Michael Giberson said:

    Maybe I can see your point with real money markets – traders would want to know if there is some possibility that the exchange is taking advantage of its information to disadvantage the traders – so real money markets should disclose use of software agents trading on behalf of the exchange even if the trading is only to maintain liquidity.  But I’m not convinced it is a big deal in, say, the WSJ’s play money market.

  7. Chris F. Masse said:

    The automated market maker takes price info from the InTrade real-money prediction markets and bring this info to the WSJ and FT play-money prediction markets. So it’s not an intra-exchange AMM (the kind of AMM you are accustomed to). It’s a special case, and it raises the issue of how much do the play-money traders contribute in the formation of prices on these play-money markets.

  8. The Gravatars are back in the Midas Oracle comments. | Midas Oracle .ORG said:

    […] now we can appreciate Mike Giberson’s new face picture —his old one, published on his website (and now pulled down), made him look a Dracula sucking […]

  9. Rab Bibater said:

    The real issue, surely, is why they feel the need to provide liquidity?  Third parties provide liquidity to the exchange, that does not in itself necessiate a need for Betfair to do the same??

  10. Chris F. Masse said:

    Rab, the post was about the "BetFair Games"…. not BetFair… The BetFair Games are special… They are about gambling actioned by a betting exchange mechanism… It’s special… Too special, maybe, or their clients. Thus, the need for an AMM.

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